CUMBERLAND — Monsignor Thomas Bevan, former pastor of the Church of St. Patrick on Centre Street, has been charged by Frederick County authorities for child abuse against an altar boy in 1976.

The 73-year-old retired priest, of Cascade, was released on $25,000 bail Thursday. He was indicted on two counts of child abuse Jan. 22 but the charges were kept sealed until Thursday, when an arrest warrant was served.

Assistant State's Attorney Lindell Angel said that Bevan allegedly abused a 10-year-old boy sexually in 1976 when he was associate pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Frederick.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore said that Bevan denied the allegations when confronted by church officials in August.

The archdiocese removed Bevan in August as pastor of the Church of St. Patrick.

Ordained in 1963, Bevan served as the church pastor for 12 years. He also had served as temporary administrator of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Cumberland in 1991-1992 and St. Patrick in Mount Savage in 1992. The archdiocese permanently revoked Bevan's faculties to serve as a priest in November after the archdiocese determined the allegations of child sexual abuse were credible.

Another former pastor of the Church of St. Patrick, Father John Wielebski, was removed from church duties last month as pastor of the Resurrection of Our Lord Church in Laurel following allegations of sexual misconduct. Complaints were made against Wielebski from an alleged incident in the mid- to late-1980s while he was serving at the St. Dominic Church in Baltimore and the Monsignor Clare J. O'Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks.

Wielebski, 62, served as pastor of the Church of St. Patrick from 1991 to 1996.